Part 5

While the center of town and the neighborhoods surrounding it were indeed lovely (picturesque was the word the tourism board preferred) the outskirts of town quickly fell into disrepair. It was a squalid warning to good citizens of what might happen if you didn’t keep up with your home repairs. The borders of the town, which the finer residents liked to pretend weren’t connected to Piper Ridge at all, bore little resemblance to the immaculately maintained heart of the small municipality.

There was no gradual transition between the good neighborhoods and the bad. One street away from the border was the suburban dream, safe and bright. Once you hit the outskirts, you locked your car doors and stepped on the gas. And you never went to the outskirts after dark.

Charlie Black lived on the outskirts of the outskirts, right on the line between Piper Ridge and the decidedly low-rent Westbrook. The house Bounds directed them to was the last on a dark, abandoned dead-end street. None of the other houses looked like they had seen life in years. A few were marked for demolition. The housing market in Piper Ridge appealed strictly to those in the million-plus market. Unless your mother’s father’s mother had owned a piece of property and you mingled with Fortune 500 members, your chances of finding an affordable home were not promising.

These were the houses where teenagers went to drink their parents’ liquor and have sex, away from the communities’ anxious eyes. The few homeless of Piper Ridge would take shelter here when the weather turned nasty, huddled together for warmth. There were no streetlights. Streetlights were for people who paid their taxes and cleaned their gutters. All the lawns were made up of dirt or dead brown grass that crumbled to dust under your feet. It was the suburban version of a ghost town. Tobias couldn’t begin to imagine the kind of person who would willingly live there.

There was no light coming from Charlie Black’s windows, understandable considering the late hour. It was a fabulously ugly house, a one-story monstrosity that could shatter an architect’s psyche. It took the word ‘squat’ to terrifying new places the word was never meant to go. The house looked as if some giant being had sat down to rest for a moment before continuing on to parts unknown. If you squinted into the dark, you could imagine the contours of some epic behind bent into the roof.

The house might have been white once, long ago in another life, but the paint had given up and flaked off years before. Now the color could only be called grey if you were particularly charitable, or colorblind. The front door was chained shut.

The gravel driveway was crowded. There was a bright red pick-up truck, old but well cared for, and well used. Behind it was a trailer home. It had been reinforced with thick, dented metal by someone with more enthusiasm than skill. There were heavy metal bars on the windows that obscured the white lace curtains behind them. Strange symbols and phrases had been painted on the trailer in stark black. Tobias couldn’t make any sense of them in the dark.

The trailer was serious. Deadly serious. The trailer meant business. If the trailer and the house were to fight, the house would collapse in a pile of asbestos and paint chips after one blow. Bounds looked sick again.

“Holy shit. Who is this guy?” asked Tobias in wonderment. He couldn’t take his eyes off the trailer. Oceans could rise, volcanoes could erupt, civilizations could crumble, and every fiber of his being told him that the trailer would survive, unfazed and indifferent, a testament to eternity. This was where you wanted to be when shit went down.

“Charlie’s a character,” repeated Bounds, who had seen the trailer more times than he’d like to admit, and thus wasn’t impressed. The car came to a stop behind the truck. “A private consultant. Come on, let’s get this over with.”

Tobias walked up to the tragic house, dead grass crunching under his feet. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Bounds ignoring the house and instead facing the door of the trailer. He quickly backpedaled, turning on his flashlight. Its beam didn’t help to disperse the overwhelming darkness.

“You’re kidding, right?” he asked, shivering in the wind. The suburbs were too damn quiet. And he was about to wake a madman from his slumber. There was light coming from the trailer’s windows, dimmed by the curtains.

“Charlie’s probably not asleep. Try not to talk,” said Bounds, rapping sharply on the door. There was a heavy thud, and a muffled string of curses came from inside the trailer. With his flashlight, Tobias could read some of the phrases painted on the sides of the trailer. They said, ‘Stay Out’ and ‘Do Not Enter’ in large block letters. There were many other languages Tobias couldn’t identify, although one looked like it might be Latin. The symbols remained a mystery, even up close. The paint was crisp and precise, bumpy under his fingers. There were layers of paint upon paint, the words being redone as needed.

The lace curtain pulled back for an instant, not enough to reveal the occupant. There was the sound of a heavy lock being undone. Then another, and another. Bounds drew himself up to his full height. Tobias felt himself tensing, although he had no idea why. The door opened a crack.

And Tobias caught a glimpse of his own face, sullen and anxious, before his flashlight reflected off the small mirror, briefly blinding him. The mirror angled to Bounds, who grimaced but didn’t look surprised. The door shut again, and more locks and chains sounded. Tobias gave Bounds a baffled glance. Bounds tensed even further, but offered not explanation. The door opened just enough for a head to crane out.

The head had bleach-blonde hair cut in a ragged bob, and angry bright blue eyes. The head had a downturned mouth with a half-smoked cigarette clenched between its teeth. The head was attached to a tall, slender woman. Tobias’ flashlight seemed to reflect off her pale skin, catching the hollows in her cheekbones. Her body was completely hidden by the door.

“What the hell do you want, Danny?” she asked in what might have been a pleasant voice, had it not been so annoyed.

“There’s been an incident at the bar,” said Bounds with the air of a man at his parole hearing. “Chief Foster believes the situation warrants your attention.” He sounded like he was reading off of a Teleprompter. The woman flicked ash at Tobias, her supernova eyes steady on Bounds. The grey soot landed on the sleeve of his brown uniform. They must have woken her, knocking at this hour. But she didn’t look like a person who’d been woken from a peaceful rest. This was a woman with only a nodding acquaintance with sleep, and an unfriendly one at that.

“You need my help,” she said, taking a drag from her cigarette and letting the smoke trickle from her nostrils. Tobias thought of dragons. “Shocking. How many dead?”

“Who said anything about dead-“ began Tobias.

“Seven,” said Bounds. The woman peered out at the moon, which hung low and lazy in the sky.

“You boys shouldn’t be out in the dark,” she said. “It’s a restless night. Give me ten minutes. Wait in the car. Keep it locked up.” She closed the door in Bounds’ face without waiting for a reply.

“What the hell was that?” demanded Tobias. Daniel Bounds let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding.

“That was Charlie,” he said.